


telling dreams from one another

by indefinissable



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel in the Bunker, Episode Related, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Sam-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefinissable/pseuds/indefinissable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Darkness will roll over him and steal whatever is left of his soul from where it lies fragile and unprotected in the hollow of his breast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	telling dreams from one another

**Author's Note:**

> This is an 11x14 coda, and isn't canon-compliant with later episodes in S11.

Darkness rolls over the field in waves. Sam tries to crawl away from the encroaching fog and finds he can’t move, paralyzed by Amara's touch. He can’t see Dean from where he’s lying prone on the ground.

Lucifer, as he himself predicted, is no match for Amara. She shakes her head a little ruefully when he squares himself in front of her, knocks the lifeless Hand of God out of his fingers with a flick of her wrist. It thuds to the ground with a heavier sound than its size would suggest.

“Lucifer,” Amara says, gently. “You were God’s favourite once. You shone so brightly. I remember.” 

She reaches out to touch his cheek. Lucifer flinches.

“I wanted that light.” Her voice rises and falls like the cadence of the ocean. “When we last fought, I swallowed it, and I burrowed a sliver of darkness inside you. You’ve worn it like a banner ever since, carried it as a totem of rebellion and free will. But all along you belonged to me.”

Black smoke pours from her, and Sam knows from the look of abject horror on Lucifer’s face that it is over. The Darkness will come over him and steal whatever is left of his soul from where it lies fragile and unprotected in the hollow of his breast.

He wishes he could see Dean.

The fog dissipates as suddenly as it came, like turning on a light switch. Lucifer is on his knees, face contorted and snarling, nose dripping black blood onto the grass. Amara staggers back, her mouth open in shock and her eyes wide. Amara, who is older than the universe, older than God, is afraid.

Sam sees the moment it happens, when _Castiel_ wrenches his head back and opens his mouth wide. Lucifer pours from his vessel in a torrent of choking black smoke and rotted yellow grace, twisted and howling with fury. When it ends, Cas slumps forward onto his hands with a grunt. His breathing is laboured and he blinks rapidly.

Amara regains her composure.

“Castiel,” she begins, and then Cas picks up the Hand of God.

Dean told Sam that when Delphine held it, the light had burned out of her, smoking and cracking under her skin and surging out from her eyes and mouth, consuming her in the process. In Castiel’s hand it pulses, and light spills out in thrumming beats like the lifeblood of a living creature. His eyes glow a bright amber and a gold aura twists and shimmers around him. In one fluid motion, Castiel gets to his feet and raises the Hand of God out in front of him. The air crackles and sparks with static and a column of pure white fire bursts from Castiel’s hand, finds its target on Amara’s body where a human’s heart would be.

Sam shuts his eyes tight against the magnificent, burning light. He hears Amara scream, an endless wail carrying with it the hatred and ancient sorrow of billions of years of punishment and solitude. Sam tries to cover his ears but the sound has burrowed its way somewhere inside his head, deep and terrible and aching.

When it finally trails off and the light dims, Sam opens his eyes.

Castiel is standing alone in the middle of the field. The pulsing glow is fading. Lucifer and Amara are gone. The Hand of God is still clutched in Castiel’s hand, hanging lifeless at his side. Cas is talking to someone, a blurred figure standing with him on the grass. Sam can’t get the words to make sense, his ears still ringing with the echoes of Amara’s scream. He thinks he hears Castiel say, “Father.”

Dean groans somewhere to his left, and Sam finds he can move again. He crawls to Dean’s side, fumbles at his jacket, trying to check for injuries.

Dean says, “Sam,” and grips Sam’s collar tight, his eyes frantic and exhausted.

“It’s over,” Sam tells him. “She’s gone. So is Lucifer.”

He pats Dean’s arm clumsily and Dean relaxes back into the grass.

“And Cas?” Dean is weary and guarded.

“He’s fine,” Sam says. “It was him. All along, it was Cas.”

Dean seems puzzled. Sam looks back to where Castiel is standing, nodding at something he is being told. His hair is ruffled and his coat flutters in the breeze. The mysterious figure reaches out to grip Castiel’s arm, and Cas’s knees go out from under him.

Panic is quick to set back in.

“Hey!” Sam shouts. He finds the adrenaline to push himself to his feet and stumble toward Cas.

The purple shadows under Castiel’s eyes are so deep they look like bruises. His face is drawn and grey and his lips are a bloodless line. But his eyes have returned to their normal brilliant blue and he is smiling. “Sam,” he says, and his cracked voice is filled with wonder.

The blurred figure slowly comes into focus, and suddenly Chuck Shurley is standing in front of Sam, beaming broadly. He is wearing a rumpled plaid button-down and dirty jeans. His hair is tangled and streaked with grey and his beard has grown out since the last time Sam saw him.

“Hi Sam,” he says jovially. “Nice work.”

“What the hell?” says Sam.

“I really appreciate you keeping an eye on things around here. I always knew I could count on you. Now go get some rest.”

Sam opens his mouth. Chuck reaches out and touches two fingers to Sam’s forehead, and a calm quiet rolls over him, carries him someplace warm and soft. 

+

Castiel sleeps for almost a week while his vessel and grace heal from the damage done by Lucifer and Amara. They put him in his bed at the bunker and Dean refuses to move from his side. Sam brings Dean food that he sometimes eats and occasionally prods him to shower.

There is a new mark on Castiel’s arm, a crescent moon with a many-pointed star cradled inside it. It is silver-white and cool to the touch. According to Chuck, it should be enough to keep Amara locked away outside the walls of the universe forever. Given that the last mark used to keep Amara out damned its bearer to an eternity of bloodlust and murder, it’s not an entirely comforting reassurance.

Chuck also tells them he’s locked Lucifer back in the cage, just as an extra thank-you for doing his job for him.

While Castiel sleeps and Dean hovers, Sam drinks coffee by the gallon and fights off unconsciousness with everything in him. In the moments when he loses to sleep, Amara’s terrible cry reverberates in his bones and Lucifer’s grasping fingers sear into his chest, reaching slick and gory through his ribs, grinning twisted and triumphant with Castiel’s bared teeth.

Sam wakes gasping for air every time, phantom aches lingering in his head and chest, and resigns himself to another night of research in the library. He leafs through endless yellowed pages in leather-bound volumes with titles like _Exorcisms and the Spirit_ ;  _Properties and Characteristics of the Human Soul_ ;  _An Account of Demonic Possession, Death, and Resurrection in Eighteenth-Century Baltimore_.

Sam searches the lore until his eyes are gritty and he’s half-delirious. He finds nothing on what happens to your soul when Satan tries to play paper-shredder with it, or on how to administer a self-test to see whether or not it’s still intact. So he mainlines caffeine and can’t stop rubbing at his chest like he might feel something rattling around in there or break through to hollow bone. He showers as hot as he can stand and stares at himself in the foggy mirror afterwards, searching for a spark of life in the eyes looking back at him.

+

Sam says, “No. Stop, please,” and tastes blood. Lucifer’s hand burns in his chest, splintering bone and bursting blood vessels, reaching– 

Sam jerks upright in his chair and instinctively throws out a hand to defend himself. He knocks over a mug of cold coffee, and it spills across the table, ruining the book Sam fell asleep reading. The library is bathed in the soft glow of lamplight. Sam struggles to get his breathing under control. His heart pounds against his ribs. He scrubs a clammy hand across his face and checks the clock. It’s just after four.

Sam stands, stretches, and makes his way to the kitchen for some paper towels and more coffee. He flips on the light.

Lucifer is sitting at the kitchen table.

“No, no, no,” Sam breathes, stumbling backward, panic clawing at his throat.

Lucifer’s brow furrows. “Sam.”

 _Not real_ , Sam thinks. _He’s not real_.

He squeezes his eyes shut, digs his nails as hard as he can into his palm, still injured from where he made the banishing sigil. The pain helps him ground himself, untangling the last cobwebs of sleep from his brain.

When Sam opens his eyes again, Cas is standing in the middle of the kitchen in a bathrobe and slippers. His face is scrunched up in concern.

Sam’s breath all rushes out at once, and he staggers back against the wall.

“Hey Cas,” he says, his voice cracking. “Sorry.”

“Sam.” Castiel’s voice is hoarse. The yellow light of the kitchen highlights the lines on his face, the gauntness of his cheeks. He looks unsteady on his feet.

Sam remembers Castiel standing in an open field and burning with all the light of God’s wrath. The memory makes him shiver.

Cas starts to raise his hand, as though to reach forward and touch Sam, but he seems to think better of it halfway through the motion. “Shall I get Dean?”

“No.” Sam’s voice is steadier this time. “No. I just. Wasn’t expecting you to be in here.”

Cas looks down at Sam’s hand. The wound on his palm has reopened and is dripping blood onto the tiled floor. 

“You mistook me for Lucifer. Sam, I am truly-”

“Don’t,” Sam says. “It wasn’t you, Cas. Okay? I know it wasn’t you, but sometimes my brain still has a hard time figuring out what’s real.”

Castiel looks pained, like there’s more he wants to say. “Will you at least let me heal your wound?”

Sam flinches, cradles his injured hand protectively against his chest.

Castiel deflates. “Sit. I’ll get you the first aid kit and put some more coffee on.”

He leaves the kitchen, and Sam draws in what feels like his first real breath since he fell asleep.

+

Castiel keeps mostly to his room after that, and Sam’s feels guilty at his own relief. When he does see Cas in passing, in the kitchen or the bathrooms, he offers a half-smile, trying to convey his gratitude. Castiel nods, seeming to understand.

Once it’s clear that Cas really is on the mend, Dean more or less returns to normal, showering and eating as regularly as he ever has. Dean carries new scars from Lucifer and Amara too, a hollowness around his eyes and a tightness in the corners of his mouth. More than once Sam catches him rubbing absently at the place the Mark once burned on his skin.

Hunting has always been the healthiest of their coping mechanisms, so when Sam gets wind of a string of grisly murders in Arizona early one morning, he knocks on Dean’s door to wake him. Dean doesn’t answer, and when Sam opens the door his room is empty, the bed neatly made. The door to Castiel’s room is ajar, so Sam pushes it open. Dean is lying on his side facing the door. Cas is curled into Dean’s body under the blankets, head tucked under his chin and fingers twined in the front of Dean’s shirt. He looks impossibly small, and very human.

Dean’s eyes are open and he’s staring at Sam, clearly struggling not to move. He meets Sam’s eyes impassively, but Sam knows him well enough to see the underlying panic.

 _Case,_ Sam mouths, gesturing at the laptop cradled in his arm.

Dean nods and holds up a finger. _One minute_.

Sam ducks back out the door and goes to wait in the kitchen. He hears Dean murmuring something quietly to Castiel on his way out.

+

Once they pass the state border into Oklahoma, Sam clears his throat.

“So,” he says, and Dean ignores him pointedly. “You and Cas.”

“Yep.” Dean sounds mildly uncomfortable but not ashamed, and Sam can see him struggling not to smile.

“Huh. I guess that’s been coming for a while.”

The green and yellow fields outside roll by for a while in comfortable silence.

“So, do I need to give Cas the shovel talk?”

Dean smirks. “I dunno, man. Do shovels work on angels?”

“Fair point,” says Sam. “I guess it’d be more of a ‘holy fire’ talk.”

Dean’s laughter feels like a victory.

+

Next to monsters including: a) primordial evils that existed before time, and b) the literal devil, dealing with an out-of-control werewolf pack is almost comfortingly mundane. They’re in and out of Arizona within three days, with only minor scrapes and bruises to show for it.

On the drive back, Dean smiles at Sam from the driver’s seat and says, “Nice work back there, Sammy.”

The same pride Sam always feels at Dean’s approval blooms in his chest and he revels in it, thinking maybe it proves Lucifer didn’t leave him empty after all.

+

Back at the bunker, Dean announces that he’s going to sleep for eight years and disappears into the sleeping quarters, presumably to Castiel’s room. Sam puts on a pot of coffee and settles in for the night.

He skypes with Eileen for an hour and they sign back and forth about their latest research and hunts. She regales him with the story of how she once bashed a Djinn’s brains in with a claw hammer, and he thinks that it’s actually nice to have another insomniac for a friend. Comforting, somehow, to know there’s someone else out there too fucked up to sleep, even if it’s for different reasons.

After they say goodbye, Sam queues up Netflix. Despite his best efforts, the last three days spent sleepless and running on diner coffee and adrenaline alone catch up to him. He passes out on the couch halfway through _Top Gun._

Sam wakes trying to claw through his ribcage with his bare hands.

There is a dark shape on top of him, pressing him into the couch, restraining his itching fingers and crushing down heavy on his chest.

“ _Sam_ ,” Cas hisses, and his fingers are like hot brands circling Sam’s wrists.

Sam coughs weakly and his chest throbs. He smells the iron tang of blood, sees his fingertips stained dark in Castiel’s grip, and everything clicks suddenly into place.

“Fuck,” he says, and goes limp.

Castiel releases him like he’s been burned. He stands and shifts guiltily while Sam catches his breath.

“I apologize. You wouldn’t respond to my voice, and you were harming yourself.”

Sam pushes himself into a sitting position, scrubs at his eyes with the backs of his bloody hands. His chest is raw and stinging.

“Cas,” he says slowly. “I need you to do me a favour.”

The response is immediate: “Of course, Sam. Anything.”

“You have to check,” Sam says heavily, dredging up the unwilling words through sheer force of will. “You have to tell me if it’s still there.”

Castiel is confused. “If what is still there?”

Sam studies his fingernails, crusted with blood. “My soul. I need to know if he. You have to touch it. So I can be sure.”

Castiel’s pity rolls over Sam and he flinches away from it. Cas’s face goes soft and open and his voice is gentle when he says, again, “Sam.”

Sam can’t bear to hear the rejection. “Look, Cas. I know the risks, and I still trust you to do it. I _have_ to know.”

Castiel watches him for a minute, and says, carefully in measured tones, “I won’t violate you like that again. But my powers are far greater than they were before.” He rolls his sleeve up to show the white mark branded onto his pale forearm. “When my Father entrusted me with this Mark, he granted me archangel status. I won’t touch your soul, Sam. But if you’ll let me, I can show you.”

“Yes,” Sam says desperately. “Please.”

Castiel’s eyes go bright blue with grace, and he reaches to touch Sam’s chest.

+

Sam is engulfed in darkness again, except this time it isn’t terrifying or cold or lonely. This darkness thrums with life and warmth, and Sam can hear thousands of whispering voices, humming together like a lullaby.

Sam can see his own body from every angle, naked and suspended in the cool dark. His hands are calloused from years of hard work and his arms are tanned brown from the sun. His hipbones and ribs are too prominent under his skin. Pale white scars overlay every part of his body: the incision from his appendectomy when he was thirteen, the jagged slash on his back from Jake Talley’s knife, the overlapping scars on his palms from endless blood rituals and sigils. Sam sees his life story written on his skin.

And _there_ , right in the center, he sees it. A white light pulsing at the core of him, thrumming and beating in time with his heartbeat, his breathing, the harmony of voices echoing in the dark. The light is unmarred and pure, and he knows from the sight of it that it is holy.

It grows brighter and brighter and Sam closes his eyes before it swallows him whole.

Then he’s back on the couch, weeping into his bloody hands with Castiel’s palm warm and solid over his heart.

+

Sam showers to wash the blood away but he keeps the water temperature cool and comfortable. When he returns, Cas makes him green tea with just the right amount of honey. They sit at the kitchen table together and Sam lets the heat from the mug warm his hands while outside the night creeps closer to dawn.

After a while, Cas clears his throat. “My apologies. I know the visions can be intense.”

Sam shakes his head. “No. Thank you, Cas.”

He feels wrung-out and exhausted, but the panic is gone. He can rest assured knowing that, at least for now, he isn’t some ruthless, soulless machine again.

“I should have picked up on the source of your distress earlier,” Cas says. “I had to reassure Dean of the same thing, you know. After what Amara said to Lucifer, he was worried that she had somehow made off with a piece of his soul.”

Sam picks at the chipped rim of his mug.

“I might need reminding again. My grip on reality has always been weaker than Dean’s.”

Castiel appraises him evenly. “It could be argued you’ve been through more.”

Sam huffs out a laugh. “I don’t think that comparison holds much weight at this point.”

Cas leans forward across the table. “Then just ask, Sam. If you ever need anything from me – from either of us. Just ask.”

Sam looks at Castiel, whose face is open and earnest and shows none of the guilt and suffering Sam knows he has carried through the millennia. Cas, who is ancient and good and more powerful than any being in Creation, and who lives in an underground bunker with Sam and his brother and does things like make them tea in the middle of the night.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll try.”

+

Chuck shows up in the bunker one morning and says, “Okay gang. Vacation’s over. I need your help.”

Dean lands a solid right hook across Chuck’s jaw.

“Dean,” Cas says, affronted.

“What the hell, Chuck?” Dean shouts.

“Hey Dean,” Chuck greets. “I’d love to catch up, but I really do need your help like, now. See, re-sealing the darkness out in the ether may have, um, weakened the outer walls for a moment there and, well, some other stuff might’ve gotten in through the cracks.”

Even Castiel rolls his eyes at that. “What kind of ‘stuff’?”

Chuck shifts awkwardly. “Oh, just some other primordial evils and lesser gods. Also maybe my first three spouses. I’m not quite sure exactly who escaped yet.”

Sam, who hasn’t slept in two days because the nightmares are bad and _really_ hasn’t had enough coffee to deal with this, says, “What the fuck? Aren’t you God? Can’t you do it yourself?”

“Well, yeah,” says Chuck. “That’s what I did for thousands of billions of years. Got a bit boring after a while, though. I much prefer teamwork now. Castiel?”

Castiel’s wings unfurl and his eyes are already burning with holy wrath. “Of course, Father.”

Chuck nods, pleased. “Right. I’m a little low on archangels at the moment, though, what with Michael and Lucifer in the cage and Gabriel tanning his ass in Ibiza.”

“Gabriel?” says Cas. “He’s alive?”

Chuck doesn’t answer. His eyes narrow and he looks at Sam and Dean appraisingly. Sam glances over at his brother, who looks back incredulously.

“No,” Sam says, and a familiar panic is threatening to rise in his chest at the thought of Chuck reaching out to touch him, to turn him inside out and transform him.

“No way,” Dean adds, angling his body so he’s standing mostly in front of Sam. “You want our help? Fine, you got it. But you are not touching me or my brother, and you sure as hell aren’t making us a part of your fucked-up family soap opera. You’ll have to smite us first.”

“Okay,” Chuck says, and holds his hands up in surrender. “I get it. I could still use your help, but we’re gonna have to find Gabriel first.”

Chuck turns to Castiel then, starts to give orders, but Cas isn’t paying attention to his Father. He is looking at Sam and Dean, beaming with pride.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are eternally appreciated.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr @withthedemonblood and on Twitter @izzy_indefini.


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